marcus valerius martialis

Parcere personis, dicere devitiis

english translation

Parcere personis, dicere devitiis

original Latin poem

Martial X:33

Vis fieri liber? Mentiris, Maxime, non vis:
sed fieri si vis, hac ratione potes.
Liber eris, cenare foris si, Maxime, nolis,
Veientana tuam si domat uva sitim,
si ridere potes miseri chrysendeta, Cinnae,
Contentius nostra si potes esse toga
se plebeian Venus gemino tibi iungitur asse,
si tua non rectus tecta subire potes,
haec tibi si vis est, mentis tanta potestas,
liberior Partho vivere rege potes.

 

Martial II:53

english translation

Martial II:53

original Latin poem

Martial II:53

Vis fieri liber? Mentiris, Maxime, non vis:
sed fieri si vis, hac ratione potes.
Liber eris, cenare foris si, Maxime, nolis,
Veientana tuam si domat uva sitim,
si ridere potes miseri chrysendeta, Cinnae,
Contentius nostra si potes esse toga
se plebeian Venus gemino tibi iungitur asse,
si tua non rectus tecta subire potes,
haec tibi si vis est, mentis tanta potestas,
liberior Partho vivere rege potes.

 

Martial

Martial, Latin in full Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 40 – c. 103), was born in the Roman colony on the Iberian peninsula in present-day Spain. He made his way to Rome and chronicled courtly life with epigrams, some of which were bitingly satirical, and others of which were clearly poems-for-hire and occasional verse likely commissioned or written with the anticipation of patronage in return. As the winds of favor shifted, he returned to his native Iberia, where he died.

 

 

Mark S. Bauer

Mark S. Bauer’s poems have appeared in various literary journals and two chapbooks: Imperial Days (Robert Barth Publishing, 2002), a chapbook of epigrams, and The Gnarled Man Rises (Scienter Press, 2005), a chapbook of lyrics. He edited the anthology A Mind Apart: Poems of Melancholy, Madness, & Addiction (Oxford, 2009), and is on the psychiatry faculty at Harvard Medical School.

 

 

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